Interaction’09 highlights

I attended the Interaction’09 Conference, held in downtown Vancouver early February 2009, featuring a wide assortment of speakers and topics from “performance art robotics” to “waiting” (yes, just waiting) to “prototyping methods” and “touch-screen interfaces”. On the whole I enjoyed it very much, found it stimulating, intriguing, and valuable–very eager to see what’s ahead for 2010! Below is my take on the conference highlights.

* My Photosets:

* Keynotes: A rich diverse array of keynote addresses, many of them pertained to the issue of “sustainability” as it relates to practicing interaction design in some form (and the relation to “behavior” as a core DNA element of IxD). I couldn’t help but notice that the wide range also suggested a subtle unconscious mapping out of the parameters of is “interaction design”: massive social change, artistic theatrical/robotic speculations, personal journeys as an entrepreneur and change agent, articulating tangible outputs for human good, and teaching/mentoring to cultivate a growing body of professionals as part of a virtuous cycle. A fascinating mix…

I posted overviews of the keynotes separately:

* Sketching: Tim Wood delivered a fabulous talk about the value of design sketching with a pen/paper, using brilliant close-up comparisons to sketches from Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and others as a way to motivate and demonstrate how design sketching is done, step-by-step. As a passionate defender of sketching as a vital design skill, I found this illuminating and delighted to see it so well received by the audience too!

* Prototyping: Andrei Herasimchuk presented an ambitious model charting out various prototyping tools and techniques for building, in essence, digital concept cars that articulate (in varying degrees of fidelity) the intended behavior of your digital product. From html to flash to AIR, for websites, RIA’s, mobile or kiosk, the chart is very detailed and comprehensive, a great resource for designers to reference per their daily work. One nice detail is the mapping of tool to what that tool affords in terms of fidelity and completeness and overall utility within product development (ie, will the code be reusable, is it fast to iterate, etc.), across a range of criteria that Andrei spells out clearly. Very helpful in consultation with development teams!

Here is Andrei’s dynamic prototyping methods chart, done in html using jquery and kuler. (just to prove that Andrei does practice what he preaches :-)

* From Research to Insight: Jon Kolko gave a awesomely speedy talk (the sessions were only 20 minutes!) on the concept of abductive thinking (what we do as designers, basically the logic of possibility, but Kolko has a more thorough interpretation :-), introducing it, why it matters, how it serves designers and providing defensible rationale for design process/thinking to non-designers, etc. Great stuff, looking forward to his paper/article on the topic coming out soon.

(Slides posted here)

(And here’s Kolko’s thoughts on the conference, with emphasis on this issue of “designing for behavior” which apparently riled up some folks at the event…hmm? To me interaction = behavior, so why the fuss? hmm)

* Touchscreen/Surface: Joe Fletcher, manager of the MS Surface design team, went through a breakdown of the issues and challenges and opportunities when designing the Surface product. Much of it was pretty common sense (like using your hand causes UI elements to be obscured, etc.), but good to hear the stories surrounding the issue and how his team dealt with the Surface, etc. Definitely no small feat! Would love to see a panel discussion featuring Surface vs. iPhone vs. touch kiosks, all hash out their issues on-stage.

* Parti Sandwich: Luke Wroblewski spoke of the need for a “parti” or central guiding concept behind every great design, based upon architecture. Mapping this concept to work he’s done at Yahoo for re-vamping their homepage, Luke discussed the concept’s value and how different layers of design, management, technology fit within the structure to be coherent and valuable. Very cool and useful thinking!

(You can download Luke’s slides here off his professional blog)

* Waiting: Joseph Dombrowski gave a surprisingly fascinating talk on the notion of waiting, like waiting on the phone or waiting for the app to launch or waiting for a reply to a message. Psychological issues, some quant data/metrics shared, but most interesting was just how a mundane concept was made into a worthwhile and often humorous presentation.

* Mobile Patterns: Jennifer Tidwell gave a quick preview of an upcoming chapter on mobile patterns from her book, mostly looking at the Apple iPhone as the model for various UI patterns and interactions. Short amount of time, but certainly tons of good rich detailed information worthy of a workshop on mobile UI design. As she said, we’re all gonna be mobile designers one way or another! Deal with it.

* Foundations of IxD: Dave Malouf gave a compact yet deep overview of this notion that has beguiled design departments: what constitutes “foundation” for interaction design? Referencing Pratt’s highly esteemed and principled foundation course, Dave offered his thoughts on topics such as prototyping, behavior, affordances/human factors, cultural & contextual issues, etc. The debate will continue no doubt and Dave made a worthwhile first momentous step!

(Slides available here)

IxD is about three fundamental things

Conversations, engagements and embodiments. Let me explain further…

Conversations are central to what we do as interaction designers: staging necessary and significant dialogues with the stakeholders & teammates as well as with the product’s users via the “It” that is being designed (an interface, a piece of software, a mobile device, a branded service, an organizational system, etc.). That thing is the mediator of a behavioral relationship between people, a conveyance of social/philo/political/emotional values via the visual, structural, and behavioral facets of the “It”. Conversations, especially those truly memorable, rewarding and influential ones, are framed by a narrative or story that adds rich context, and thus helping to create valuable, and hopefully enduring, meaning. As interaction designers we define behavior, and shape meaning. Conversations serve as the vehicle for that to happen, which are mediated by artifacts and outputs we may create.

Engagements are the product encounters themselves, the actual using of “It” to act in some way or achieve a goal or perform a task, etc. I use this word engagement in particular because it suggests something deep, committed, profound, and very significant personally, like a wedding engagement. As you play around with a product, feeling out the controls and responses, interpreting what does what and for whatever reason, you are cultivating a relationship, in effect “getting to know each other” seeing if there’s a good fit, an appropriateness for the immediate situation. And all of this–here’s the magic, the real phenomenal beauty of it–transpires literally in just seconds through the powerful neuro/physio/cognitive abilities of our minds and bodies and senses.

Embodiments are the manifestations of a designer’s ideas into some perceptible form that can be engaged with on various levels, thus enabling the rich meaningful storied conversation to happen, and hopefully cultivate a shift in that person’s attitudes and behaviors for the better– a renewed outlook, a completed task, a sense of accomplishment, whatever it may be. The embodiment can be an interface, a kiosk, a mobile device, a wayfinding system, a set of packaging, blueprint for a new service, etc. The blend of visual (graphics, icons, colors, textures), behavioral (type, click, flick, rotate, twist, drag, shake, speak, etc.) and structural (navigation, orientation, semantics, etc.) takes shape in the embodiment and basically constitutes the “It” to contend with, and how meaning emerges, via the “consummate doing and undergoings”, as John Dewey would say. (riffing from Dewey’s Art as Experience)

So if we accept that IxD is deep down about these three fundamental, core elements then I think we can have very productive debates about the future of IxD and its applicability in other areas such as services, policies, social change, ecological well-being, thus identifying new areas of opportunity for the skilled, talented, well-intentioned interaction designer.

Next big thing: policy design

First it was interaction design. Then service design. What’s the next hot thing for design? Policy Design. (that’s my big gamble :-)

The latest firestorm over Facebook’s privacy and content usage policies indicated that this notion of crafting a community policy is more than simply the work of a few lawyers and a PR campaign to “sell it” to the skeptical public. Their new attempt to “democratize” their efforts with blogs and commenting could indicate the shift to a new approach on debates about corporate policies and how they should be expressed and governed.

Then there are the mundane tax policies not just written into the code of popular consumer software like TurboTax but governing consumer and corporate behaviors, subscription plans/policies for mobile phone use, zoning regulations for doing home modifications on your property, policies on your home/car/college loans for re-payment and re-financiing, etc. Policies are a fact of life that we deal with whether we like it or not, however implicitly or explicitly–or even unknowingly.

And there’s the new Obama budget plan and his recent speech to Congress heavily suggesting that regulatory policies are making a comeback for the financial industries. Agencies to authorize and shepherd or oversee the distribution of the stimulus funds. Bodies to ensure dutiful and not wasteful expenditures, amid the banner of a new era of responsibility, as hailed in Obama’s inaugural address.

But who’s going to do draft, maintain, communicate, and evolve these policies–which are regarded in effect as large abstract incomprehensible documents full of jargon and projecting an inhuman disregard for ordinary common sense. More than likely it will be those who have an enlightened sense for the humane, sensible, communicable, visualizable, etc. and not just the typical lawyer or politician or bureaucrat.

Yep, we’re moving up Buchanan’s four orders trajectory towards ever-increasing levels of political and social complexity, or wickedness. Where rhetorical powers of negotiation and arbitration become critical, with a primacy on truly knowing your audience and balancing the maelstrom of competing interests and rights and responsibilities among all the power players. Influence is wide-reaching, across the internets (sic) and mobile devices and third places or even geographies.

But will these people who perform “policy design” be called designers? Probably not, more likely just strategists, planners, facilitators, etc. which is fine as long as they positively convey the humanistic and cultural values of “good design”, and embody/express them into their practice and the subsequent artifacts… effectively becoming the arbiters of policy-making in government, business, law, universities, among other institutions of daily life.

The complexity of simplicity

I wrote about simplicity last year in a posting based upon Paul Rand’s famous dictum: Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations. I certainly believe Rand’s point still holds, but I’ve been drawn to this concept again, to unpack it further, more deeply as a rhetorical and humanistic, cultural issue of interaction design a la Buchanan/McCullough, etc.

At Interaction’09 in Vancouver, Dan Saffer almost exasperatedly admonished the audience to “stop fetishizing simplicity”, which partly explains why this concept has returned to my attention recently. What is simplicity really? Below are some early thoughts as I brainstorm on this topic:

– Simplicity innately has to deal with designing for rapid and facile sensemaking–the interpretation of meaning– which may lead to the generation of meaning in the engagement between a person and a product/service/system, which itself is heavily contextualized

– The presence of simplicity emerges in the course of a dialogue (visual, conceptual, physical, etc.) a flow of meaning from person to “the other”–whatever it may be

– There is a social or cultural dimension to the usage of products and services, call it brand-driven pressure or acceptance that makes something seem simple or assume the mantle of simplicity (ie, Apple products are branded as simple, easy to use…but in fact they’re quite complex, filled with hidden features, etc.)

– At a deep human level, I think “simplicity” is really about engendering a profound, instinctive quality of trust in the human user/participant of this product-driven dialogue…Once trust is gained or established, does that make the product seem simpler to operate?

– Following from ideas by Daniel Pink in his book on right-brained thinking, I wonder if stories, empathy, imagination, and a plain old common sense way of supporting people in their everyday activities cultivate a sense of simplicity?

I intend to explore this further with a former Adobe design colleague, and hopefully our discussions will result in a provocative and significant contribution to the design profession, in ACM Interactions namely :-) Stay tuned!